The Game Beat - Observations and Lessons from Two Decades Writing About Games

examines the whos, hows, and whys of the game journalists covering the young but growing game industry over the last 15+ years. This collection of more than 80 columns quotes dozens of writers past and present on everything from the near-death of print gaming magazines to the ethics of attending paid junkets to how much review scores really matter. The Game Beat is essential reading for anyone who writes about games and anyone who just like to read about them.

Try before you buy: Read an excerpt at Ars Technica or dig through the archives at The Game Beat newsletter or the my personal web site.

About the Author

Kyle Orland got his start writing about video games at the age of 14, when he started fan site Super Mario Bros. HQ on his parents' AOL web space. Since then he's somehow assembled a career writing and talking about games for over a dozen outlets ranging from NPR to Joystiq to Electronic Gaming Monthly. Kyle is the author Wiley Publishing's and and co-author of the self-published .

Kyle is currently the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica.

Advance praise for

" is a thoughtful collection of snapshots from various points in the modern history of video games, reflected through the lens of what the games media was talking (and yelling) about on any given week. Worth reading for any aspiring games journalist or media junkie."

" is essential not only because it gathers together some of Kyle Orland's best writing, but also because the work collected here offers insight into 15 years of games culture and games journalism. It is a sort of map of our field, sketched not from a disinterested birds-eye-view, but by someone who knows the journey intimately."

"There aren't many people whose perspective on video games and the media mean as much to me as Kyle Orland's. Kyle has always been an earnest and curious chronicler of video game journalism, so it should be no surprise that this collection of much of his work covering that space over the last decade-plus has both of those values. For anyone interested in the real challenges of working this beat, this collection is an easy recommendation."

"Kyle Orland is a foundational video game journalist. In a time when the mainstream didn't take games journalism seriously, Orland did, and this book compiles his tireless efforts over nearly 15 years to help discover a structure of ethics and respectability that would help game journalism stand as a legitimate form of media worthy of the majesty of video games themselves."

"The original self-appointed 'arbiter' of video game journalism has compiled a decade plus of columns into a feature-length, fully matured view of why being an ombudsman for this bizarro space is effectively impossible - but also very entertaining at the same time!"

"Kyle Orland can't be old, because if he's old I am too. But he's an old-timer on the games beat. Follow him through two decades covering the industry and its players, and discover how much as changed, and how much has remained the same in the games biz."